He learned peking opera and martial arts with his fellow classmates including Sammo Hung, Jackie Chan and Yuen Biao and were collectively called the Seven Little Fortunes.

He joined the film industry and started working as a bit player and stuntman.

He became well known for his superior martial arts performance in "Dance of the Drunk Mantis" (1979), and he was then promoted to the post of martial art director.

His famous works include "Dragon Lord" (1982) and "Zu - Warriors From the Magic Mountain" (1983).

In 1982, he began his directing debut with "Ninja in the Dragon's Den", produced by Ng See Yuen. Then Ng asked Yuen to go to America to direct an action movie, "No Retreat, No Surrender" under the name Corey Yuen, starring then unknown Jean-Claude van Damme.

As he came back to Hong Kong, he made one of his best action movies, "Yes, Madam", which made Michelle Yeoh and Cynthia Rothrock to be the best known fighting ladies.

He co-directed with Jeff Lau "All For the Winners" which grossed HK$41.3 millions and was the highest grossing movie in 1990.

He was nominated for best action choreography award of the Hong Kong film awards several times and finally won the award for "Fong Sai Yuk" (1993).